moving again?
My mother-in-law is visiting us for the week. She's home with sleeping baby William and having sing-a-longs with Avigail while I go out to various errands. I've been out almost two hours by now! Hooray! I dropped off our utility payment and Ben's dry cleaning, browsed Ross Dress for Less, refilled some water jugs and checked out a new little mostly-children's boutique I'd had my eye on, picked up a couple items at Wal-Mart (and a McChicken sandwich...), got my glasses adjusted (the kids do love to bend glasses! They actually broke Ben's glasses this weekend; he's getting contacts now haha), and now I'm at the library to apply for a couple jobs. I want to apply to get my most recent job as a part-time support teacher back, and I need to apply for a job every week to qualify for unemployment payments. Woot money!
We've been talking about moving back to our old house in Eugene, Oregon. We rent it out currently, and our tenants take excellent care of the place and put a ton of "sweat equity" into it, but they're not so good at paying the rent either on time or in full. I got so sick of dealing with these tenants ages ago that I handed the job over to Ben, who is now fed up with them, too. Ben's company will be expanding into Oregon in the coming months, and Ben may ask to be their "man on the ground," commuting to Portland about once a week and working from home the rest of the time until an office opens in Eugene. It's just an idea! We will wait and see if I get re-hired for my job. If I do, we plan to stay in California and bolster our finances further. (We've laid out a budget where, barring any significant unforeseen expenses, Ben's income can cover everything we need.) If not, we'll go to Oregon!
The idea is really growing on me. I mean, really -- a house I love, the rewarding challenge of getting a lot of dyslexia students as I work on a graduate degree (I can't even substitute teach in Oregon without a master's degree), the opportunity to re-connect with the friends I made so easily in my short time there and develop new friendships during the day through MOMS Club up there. It sounds like a dream!
At first I was a little horrified. I've really grown to love my little city of Lompoc ("lom-poke") for reasons other than the perfectly temperate weather (it really is 72 and sunny every day of the year, with very few exceptions). And we have only just recently really gotten our budget nailed down and our finances settled. The last thing I want to do is upset that balance. We're planning to make some sort of spreadsheet to figure out exactly the cost/benefit analysis in financial terms.
But for now, I will carry on and apply for jobs here in California. I'd best get to it. ;-)
We've been talking about moving back to our old house in Eugene, Oregon. We rent it out currently, and our tenants take excellent care of the place and put a ton of "sweat equity" into it, but they're not so good at paying the rent either on time or in full. I got so sick of dealing with these tenants ages ago that I handed the job over to Ben, who is now fed up with them, too. Ben's company will be expanding into Oregon in the coming months, and Ben may ask to be their "man on the ground," commuting to Portland about once a week and working from home the rest of the time until an office opens in Eugene. It's just an idea! We will wait and see if I get re-hired for my job. If I do, we plan to stay in California and bolster our finances further. (We've laid out a budget where, barring any significant unforeseen expenses, Ben's income can cover everything we need.) If not, we'll go to Oregon!
The idea is really growing on me. I mean, really -- a house I love, the rewarding challenge of getting a lot of dyslexia students as I work on a graduate degree (I can't even substitute teach in Oregon without a master's degree), the opportunity to re-connect with the friends I made so easily in my short time there and develop new friendships during the day through MOMS Club up there. It sounds like a dream!
At first I was a little horrified. I've really grown to love my little city of Lompoc ("lom-poke") for reasons other than the perfectly temperate weather (it really is 72 and sunny every day of the year, with very few exceptions). And we have only just recently really gotten our budget nailed down and our finances settled. The last thing I want to do is upset that balance. We're planning to make some sort of spreadsheet to figure out exactly the cost/benefit analysis in financial terms.
But for now, I will carry on and apply for jobs here in California. I'd best get to it. ;-)